Improving The Quality of Elementary Education - in developing countries and India (especially post-RTE); equal learning opportunities for the poor and marginalized; insights gained from processes in India and South Asia. All this adds up to CHANGE - and the material here is meant for those sharing the adventure...

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Why Measuring Learning Outcomes Does Not Improve Accountability in Education – Or Outcomes

In the last few years, the clamour for measuring
learning outcomes and using that as a means to ensure accountability has grown
louder. In fact the current Five Year Plan insists that learning outcomes be
measurable and be measured. Corporate houses funding various foundations and
NGOs are big on learning assessment and look to it as a means of bringing about
improvement. Many sensible people are voicing views to the effect that if a
teacher is unable to generate learning outcomes, he should be shoved aside and
replaced by someone better. And, of course, the feeling persists that we are
not measuring the quality of learning enough.

This is unfortunate. Not because measuring outcomes is
not important or somehow wrong but because the present formulations of the
issue are simplistic to the extent that they prevent underlying issues to be
addressed. Here is how.

First, it is not as if the quality of learning is not
being measured, or has not been measured in the last 20 years. The first
all-India survey of learning levels was conducted by the NCERT in 1995, and
there have been many since. Several large-scale independent studies of
students’ learning levels have been run, including ASER and surveys of Education
Initiatives. Small-scale learning assessments have been conducted for innumerable
research studies (e.g. of 1 lakh children in Tamil Nadu to assess the state’s
Activity Based Learning Programme) or pilot projects (for instance, several
states have piloted their textbooks and used learning achievement as a
benchmark). And of course at least hundreds (if not thousands) of NGOs/NGO-run
programmes (often in government schools) have incorporated assessment as an
effectiveness measure.

There are thus any number of assessments available – and
they've been telling us for the last twenty years that our children are not
learning. Only, this doesn’t seem to have resulted in improved learning, thus
questioning the assumption behind the clamour for measurement.

This is a little like weighing a child to assess the
level of nutrition – unfortunately, merely weighing the child will not lead to
better nutrition... Something else is
clearly required, and that doesn’t seem to be happening.

Second, insisting on having 'measurable' outcomes is
hugely misleading – just because you can measure something doesn't make it more
worthwhile (e.g. we do want students to be creative or considerate or civic
though there are no easy measures for these). Several of the assessments
mentioned suffer from this. Thus an Adivasi child who displays great
resourcefulness, knowledge of the environment and concern for others would be
called poorly educated since the ‘tests’ measure only basic literacy and
numeracy.

Measuring outcomes would be useful only when we
measure what matters most to us. Not whether a child can read something aloud
but whether he can form an opinion on it and give the reasons behind them. Not
whether a child can do calculations but whether she can apply it in real world
contexts to solve problems or take a decision. Some of these may be hard to
measure, but it would be useful to remember that it is not the purpose of
education to be assessable, but the purpose of assessment to measure what is
considered most worth learning.

Third, measuring outcomes does not account for
contexts and tends to disadvantage (and label) those facing adverse conditions.
Which then makes it even more difficult for them to improve. There are many
teachers who work very hard in difficult conditions – but don't attain the kind
of outcomes expected because the curriculum assumes children will be able to
attend daily or speak the school language at home (and several other such
notions), which don't apply to the children they work with (some 60-70% in
India). We'll end up shoving these teachers out if we take the advice to
replace them – instead of overhauling the system which has designed itself in
such a way that marginalized children WILL fail.

Fourth, there is a danger that the present focus on
outcomes is actually obfuscating – instead of increasing – accountability.
India's challenges now arise from its success in rapidly expanding the school
system to bring in so many children. The consequence is that we now have
students (at all levels) who traditionally never attended schools - working
children, migrant groups, girls from various communities, children with
disabilities, socially excluded communities…. the list is endless. What this
means is that while the nature of our students has changed, the curriculum,
pedagogy and assessment remain as they used to be and so, the DESIGN ITSELF
leaves these learners out.

At a second level, when it comes to implementation,
there is a tendency in those responsible to ignore laxity on the assumed ground
that it is only happening to those who do not matter. (Just as it is easier to
ask a poor person to push a stalled car rather than a well-dressed one, similar
prejudices operation in all facets of our society, including government
officials.) Even now, therefore, it is mainly those from better-resourced
families who continue to succeed, and we continue to have poor education for
the poor. So the accountability really needs to be demanded at the level of the
system (NCERT, MHRD, Departments of Education) and state / district / block
officials.

As long as people keep pointing fingers at teachers as
the main villains, the really responsible will continue to escape
accountability. For instance, when the NCERT's own national survey shows low
levels of learning, why does nothing happen to anyone at any level, including
the NCERT itself (whose curriculum has been taken by many states now performing
poorly)? How come officials at various levels continue exactly as they have been
for decades with impunity when every measurebrings out dismal levels of learning in their watch? Recently, when our
group, IgnusERG assessed class 9 students in a district we found 68% of them to
be at class 4-6 levels, 7% below class 3 level, and only 4% at the class 9
level where they were expected to be. When this finding is shared, everyone
finds a way to blame some one else!

Finally, let me leave you with this – in the current
form, knowledge of outcomes attained does not help bring about improvement. Most
states will be implementing SLAS (State Learning Assessment Survey) in the
coming months. But once a state finds out it is performing poorly, say, in mathematics,
that will not inform it of the reasons why this is so. It could be the poor
curriculum (e.g. overambitious expectations) or weak syllabus (less time
allocated than required), or inappropriate pedagogy (no use of concrete
materials at an early age) or bad textbooks (poorly sequenced or giving
discrete rather than contextual examples) or demotivated teachers or
insufficient teaching time (because the state continues using teachers for
non-teaching tasks even after RTE and court orders to this effect) or home vs
school language issues or at least 10 other problems that can be named, each of
which can seriously lead to poor outcomes. So where will the improvement begin?

The point, as mentioned earlier, is: do ask for
outcomes, but don't keep it simplistic, or we'll continue to get the poor
outcomes we've been documenting over the last 20 years.

4 comments:

Shiva HN Shankar
said...

These issues are very real and important. However, the solutions to these issues are complex and would require involvement of all stakeholders, including parents as well. I believe the current approach is like the blindfolded people groping an elephant and trying to imagine what they are touching. We look at each problem and try to address it piece by piece, rather than a holistic approach.In my view, outcomes are a necessary first step, but i agree they should be structured and take a more broader view. Thanks for a thought provoking post.Shiva

A great insight to the so - called coherent approach towards improving the quality of Education. The whole post plants innumerable questions and at the end I ask myself whether a CHANGE for betterment is possible or has it surpassed a level not reachable by any one of us and all of us are still questioning where is the CHANGE???

Sir this is an introspection to our edn departments . What r the elements to be strengthened or added to improv learnig outcomes 1.Time spent for learning activities.2.sope for variety ofistructional strategies used in day to day class room teaching.3.use of difrent learning materils..4. Judicious use of teacher talk. 5.work out the role as mentor

About Me

Former Educational Quality Advisor to MHRD, Government of India; developed the Quality Framework for the implementation of the Right To Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India's EFA programme. Now, Principal Coordinator - Group Ignus, which comprises of IgnusERG (consulting company), Ignus-PAHAL (non-profit) and Ignus-OUTREACH (low cost educational publishing). Work on large-scale systemic change in education, advising state and national governments in Asia, developing appropriate models for vulnerable population groups, and improving the quality of governmental as well as NGO educational programmes. This involves improved curricula, textbooks, teacher training and capacity building at various levels. Also reaching out to teachers and grassroots functionaries making an effort to bring about improvement wherever they are, in whichever way they can.